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Sanat Narayan
Feb 19, 20225 min read

Why Some Governments Have an Interest in Ignoring Climate Change?

Updated: Apr 5, 2022

Climate change is real. The science is clear, and the evidence is clearer. And despite this there are some who still choose to bury their heads in the sand to drown out the voices of the growing number of people demanding that the crisis at hand be acknowledged. When it is a relative or the neighbor sporting a tin foil hat who is denying the overwhelming scientific consensus1, it may be easier to write their views off as those of a misguided minority who are doing little to no harm. But when entire governments start to ignore climate change it becomes hard to treat it as something benign that does not warrant any real attention. We could certainly discard the unscientific views that certain individual lawmakers and parliamentarians espouse about climate change as a case of lack of real knowledge about the subject matter. However, it is difficult to do the same when governments, with access to all resources they may need to verify the facts, as a whole enact or support policies embodying this unempirical worldview. When this happens, it can no longer be shelved as a climate illiteracy but rather as a case of willful ignorance. The question we then need to ask here is not if governments deny climate change but rather why they do so.

At the outset, it must be noted that no side of the political spectrum, in a traditional partisan politics sense, is free from blame when it comes to handling climate change. We need not look any further than the 2020 United States Presidential elections where the candidate being endorsed by climate organizations has reiterated that he will not ban fracking2 (an activity with disastrous environmental implications) completely, save on the federal lands. Examples like this go to show that there are few who are not complicit in either worsening climate change or refusing to upset the status quo in the quest for a greener future. In this context where there are leaders who are aware of the detrimental consequences of some of our industries and activities and even openly push for ecological considerations to be given greater importance in legislation, there is a clear dissonance between the words of our leaders and their actions making the situation at hand far more confusing.


The first rationale behind this is the pure monetary gain that governments may seem to get by ignoring climate science. Take Saudi Arabia for instance, where the oil industry accounts for 43% of the nation’s GDP3, and the state run petroleum company ARAMCO has a valuation of over $2 trillion. Saudi officials have been vocal in the past about their repudiation of the science behind climate change4 and while this denial may not be as overt as it had been, there continues to be a dearth of action taken by the state in terms of its climate commitments5. Successful climate action involves the scaling down of both production and usage of fossil fuels – which would directly impact the turnover of the Saudi government, thereby disincentivizing meaningful climate action as it would be detrimental to the coffers of the government. However, Saudi Arabia is but one example. Environmentally hazardous industries play crucial roles in the economies of several nations, with these industries being tried and tested paths to financial success. This is not to say that clean energy and industries are necessarily economically disadvantageous but rather their novelty comes with a certain amount of uncertainty; uncertainty that governments would rather not face when the status quo gets results – even if it is at the cost of the environment.

This brings us to a second possible reason behind the ignorance of the science of climate change- the false notion that supporting climate action and shifting to clean energy would cause a shrinkage in the number of jobs. The president of the USA, Donald Trump, in his speech elucidating his rationale behind his decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords said that he did so to protect American jobs in the fossil fuel industry and to prevent those jobs from being taken over by other nations.6 While it may be true that there would be jobs lost in the fossil fuel industry, the idea that there would be a net loss of jobs due to this simply is not true. As things stand today, clean energy employs thrice as many people in the United States as the fossil fuel industry does,7 and by the year 2026 the two fastest growing jobs in the country are slated to belong to the clean energy industry. Again, it is true that all the jobs lost in the transition to cleaner energy will not be absorbed by these new industries, but with scales tipped in favor of clean energy in terms of both total number of people employed and job growth, the protectionism towards the fossil fuel industry in this context is seemingly illogical. The reason behind this is simple – votes. Trump’s ostensible explanation came in the backdrop of having overwhelmingly won the votes of mining communities who rallied around his promise to protect mining jobs. The fossil fuel industry has been around for scores of years now, with the industry being rooted in several communities. Contrasting these strong collectives to the ununified and relatively new clean energy jobs, communities such as mining communities made up of generational labor can be a crucial vote bank which politicians seek to secure by promising them job-security in a world that is increasingly environmentally conscious. Across the world, politicians chase after the votes of these communities and may potentially ignore climate science out of a fear of losing their voter base.

The people and parties that make up these governments are another reason why climate change is ignored. The lack of education about climate change aside, those with relevant knowledge too may stand to benefit from ignoring the science. Oil companies among others have been notorious for funding political parties and politicians indiscriminately the world over. Donations are made to parties of all ideological affiliations8 at times and show no signs of stopping. Individuals running for office often see sizable donations made to their campaigns as well, which may preclude them from acting in a conscionable manner towards environmental ends. Seeing governments as single entities rather than bodies made up of individuals may often remit individual lawmakers of public scrutiny as well, and this factor could sometimes be overlooked in analyzing governmental decisions.

The fear of upsetting voter bases and donors, coupled with taking the ‘traditional’ route to financial and economic success in terms of high GDP levels are some of the possible reasons behind governments turning a blind eye to environmental considerations. Candidates who seem more environmentally conscious are also not a final solution, and merely electing these candidates must not be the end of our engagement as citizens with the government in securing a cleaner and greener future.

3 Walt, V. (2017). Inside Saudi Aramco’s kingdom of oil. Fortune. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2017/10/24/saudi-arabia-aramco-oil







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